It is the first comment from a senior national leader on the issue, and shows Mr Bo is in a precarious position. Officials confirm that this is because of the Wang Lijun incident. He disappears from public view. Another rumour suggests Mr Bo could be linked to the death of a British businessman, Neil Heywood, who died in Chongqing last November. He insists he does not live an extravagant life and says his education has been funded by scholarships and his mother's earnings as a lawyer.
He says he has no comment to make about the investigation. The openness of the trial won praise across China, but belied the tight control Beijing actually maintained over the proceedings.
Foreign and independent journalists were blocked from sitting in on the trial, and testimony by Bo regarding Party pressure to confess was redacted from the official testimony. Critics questioned whether the transparency of Bo's trial marked a turning point in the liberalizing of China's judicial system or if it was merely political theater employed by Beijing to cool public resentment against systemic party corruption.
The whole Bo debacle has become an enormous black eye for the Communist Party. As Bo Xilai's story exploded on Chinese media, lurid details of the extravagant lives led by the Bo clan only confirmed public suspicions of mass official corruption, both at the local and national level.
Since the party's inception, China's Communists have gone to great lengths to carefully craft a public image that underscored its virtuousness and humble roots. With that party myth effectively shattered by Bo's trial, China's new President Xi Jinping has made eliminating corruption a key policy in a bid to restore that reputation.
Although prosecutors charged Zhou on April 3 with intentional disclosure of state secrets, the link to Bo has not previously been made public. Bo, a charismatic politician and one-time rising star within the ruling Communist Party, was jailed for corruption and abuse of power in Sources with ties to the Chinese leadership said Zhou, 72, stood accused of tipping off Bo that he was about to be sacked in early as party boss of the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing and a member of the decision-making politburo.
Prosecutors also charged Zhou with bribery and abuse of power, although they have given no details about one of the most dramatic scandals to hit China since the Communist revolution in Zhou has not been seen in public since October Subscribe Sign In. Continue reading your article with a WSJ membership. Resume Subscription We are delighted that you'd like to resume your subscription.
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